Montgomery County 418th District Court

Which standing orders apply in the Montgomery County 418th District Court?

The 418th has four orders of its own: a standing order on motions and hearings, a standing order on mediation and temporary orders, an order requiring a parenting course for people seeking conservatorship, and an order on final trial settings and mediated settlement agreements. Each is signed by Judge Tracy A. Gilbert.

Motions and hearings

This order was filed with the District Clerk on January 3, 2024 and took effect immediately.

• Any motion that does not need live testimony is set by submission with at least 10 days' notice.
• Every motion has a proposed order granting the relief, filed as a separate document.
• A response and a proposed order denying relief are due at least 2 working days before submission. Asking for an oral hearing is not itself a response.
• Except with leave of court, no motion is considered until the movant files a certificate of conference giving the date, time and manner of each attempt to confer and stating that no agreement was reached. Summary judgment, default, nonsuit, new trial and service of citation motions are excepted.

Mediation before temporary orders, then a time limit

Under the standing order filed January 3, 2024, everyone attends mediation before any temporary orders hearing, and the party asking for temporary orders contacts the other side to schedule it. If mediation fails, the hearing is capped: three hours in total, split equally, when the exclusive right to designate a child's primary residence is at issue, and two hours in total for every other temporary matter.

A parenting course for anyone seeking custody or access

The order regarding persons seeking conservatorship, effective January 1, 2023, requires every person seeking to be a managing or possessory conservator, or seeking access to a child, to complete a parent education and family stabilization course that meets Texas Family Code § 105.009 and file the original certificate.

• It covers first-time cases about a child as well as modifications; enforcement-only cases and cases a governmental agency brings are excluded.
• The petitioner or movant finishes within 60 days of filing; the respondent within 60 days of first appearing, answering or signing a waiver.
• A copy of the order is attached to the petition. When a waiver of service is used, the signer gets a copy and a statement of compliance is filed.
• Skipping the course can mean not being named managing conservator, losing specified possession, contempt, struck pleadings or sanctions under Rule 215.

Settlements and the final trial date

The order regarding final trial settings and mediated settlement agreements took effect January 1, 2024. A signed settlement does not take a case off the 418th's docket.

• If a binding mediated settlement agreement is filed before docket call and the court is told no one needs to appear, the case stays set on the final trial date for entry of the decree, and it may be dismissed if no decree is approved that day.
• A party who needs more time past the trial date to finish the decree must appear at docket call.
• An agreement filed before docket call, followed by no appearance and no notice to the court, leads to dismissal.
• An agreement filed between docket call and trial still requires an appearance on the trial date, or the case is dismissed.